Before our most recent field trip to the Delaware beach, I told my students that they needed to collect shells and rocks for a sculpture we would be making in art. I asked them to find a large rock for the base, and whatever else they wanted to put on top of it. They always think of ideas I never would have, such as the one below. I love the creativity. The instructions on how to make these are included below.
crab holding sea glass
1. Take students on a field trip to the beach. (Always remember to abide by all safety rules and have good parameters.)
2. Have students take a bag to collect stuff. (Warning: dead crabs stink.)
3. Wash everything. We did this in large bowls of water outside. Each student got a paper plate with their name written on it in Sharpie to place the washed shells and rocks on. They dried while we played outside.
4. Give each student a large piece of wax paper and use water-based varnish to coat everything (rock base and shells) at least twice.
5. Using a large stone (found at the beach) as the base, have students first arrange the driftwood, shells, crabs, in different arrangements until they have an idea they like.
6. Let the older students glue their own, sharing tubes of glue (we used E-6000 and Goop). For the younger students, the teachers applied the glue and let the students arrange their sculptures while the glue was still wet.
One More Idea
Last year, we glued our finds to flat pieces of foam board. This year, we wanted to do something a little different.
